Heaven - Entry Into Heaven

Entry Into Heaven

Religions that speak about heaven differ on how (and if) one gets into it, either in the afterlife or while still alive. In many religions, entrance to Heaven is conditional on having lived a "good life" (within the terms of the spiritual system) or "accepting God into your heart." A notable exception to this is the 'sola fide' belief of many mainstream Protestant Christians, which teaches that one does not have to live a perfectly "good life," but that one must accept (believe and put faith in) Jesus Christ as one's saviour, and then Jesus Christ will assume the guilt of one's sins; believers are believed to be forgiven regardless of any good or bad "works" they have participated in. Catholic Christians too speak of heaven as unattainable by even heroic human effort and having been "opened" by the death and resurrection of Jesus. They see heaven as promised by God as a reward for good works made possible only by his grace, while "the works of the flesh" exclude from heaven. A contrary view is that of Christian Universalism, which holds that, because of divine love and mercy all will ultimately be reconciled to God.

Dispensationalists hold that, in an event called the Rapture, Christians will be suddenly removed from earth before or during the Great Tribulation. They base this belief on 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which says that, along with "the dead in Christ", "we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air".